Giraez, a cash-to-service solution for sending money between people in different countries, has won the Insurtech Lab from IE University and MAPFRE

For people living and working outside their country, sending funds to their loved ones is often an expensive and tedious process to say the least. This is because of the fees applied and the need to identify a company that operates in both origin and destination countries. For those at the receiving end of the transfer, there can be a number of other problems, such as having to travel to another city to complete the transaction or the security problems that come with traveling with large amounts of cash. Thinking about these real needs—that go hand-in-hand with current lifestyles—and rising to the challenge of finding solutions to them, Gabriela Caso de los Cobos and Alfonso Javier Valín García (alumni of the IE Executive MBA — EMBA’20 and IE Masters in Corporate and Marketing Communication — MCM’18) took part in the first edition of Insurtech Lab from IE University and MAPFRE and won the award for their category, which was presented at IE Venture Day.

Giraez was conceived as a platform that allows migrant workers to directly buy services in their home country in a range of sectors, including food and catering, healthcare, education and mobility. In this way, Giraez is proposing a change in the concept of money transfers, offering to convert it directly into concrete solutions, such as a shopping basket or enrollment in a training program. This cash-to-service conversion system avoids complications such as loss of cash through fees or travel, which in addition to implying a cost in terms of time and money often also involve security problems. For the ideologists behind this solution, “Giraez can change the lives of many people. There’s nothing like it on the market. In the last few months, we got in touch with people who currently have these problems and would be delighted to have a solution like this. We have focused on the Latin American market first, but the model is scalable to other regions with the same needs.”

This year, with the support of MAPFRE, IE University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation launched the Insurtech Lab program for the first time, which focused on innovation in the insurance industry. This award was open to students and alumni of this educational community and, of the 5 teams selected from nearly 200 candidates, and after 10 weeks of work, 3 projects were shortlisted: MyAllergeaze (intended for people with food allergies), Chido (a fintech solution to facilitate everyday spending needs) and Giraez. They were set the challenge of finding lifestyle solutions, through products or services that could respond to the needs associated with lifestyle changes, in line with the criteria of responsibility and sustainability that are written into the DNA of institutions like IE and MAPFRE.